Nevertheless, the passing of Palin’s career doesn’t mark the end of the Tea Party any more than the defeat of Mitt Romney has spelled the end of moderate, flip-flopping Republicanism. Contrary to the media hype about her singular role in the movement, she was one leader among many. Several of the rising stars of the GOP are associated with the Tea Party (Rubio, Ryan, Walker, Paul) and the overwhelming consensus on the Right remains that the state should be small and that Republicans should resist Obama’s efforts to grow it. Nobody wants to go back to the welfare/warfare conservatism of the Bush years. But the biggest change that the Tea Party has wrought has been to make the Republicans a little more working-class and a little less WASP-y.

Despite the almost regularly scheduled “Tea Party is dead” stories in the American press, there are almost as many that want to make it out to be all powerful and in complete control of the Republican party whenever one of these manufactured financial negotiaion crises arise. Neither is true, of course. Only American “journalists” can report two completely different sides of one story and get both completely wrong.

This is the first article in from any major news group that sort of gets it. Sarah Palin was always a Tea Party favorite and her efforts were tireless to help the movement. Never once, however, have I met anyone in the movement who considered her the “leader”. That’s a story spun entirely by the MSM and, sadly, there idiot fans believe every word of it.

Stephen Kruiser is a professional comedian and writer who has also been a conservative political activist for over two decades. A co-founder of the first Los Angeles Tea Party, Kruiser often speaks to grassroots groups around America and has had the great honor of traveling around the world entertaining U.S. troops.